Latias
(Dragon Vault)
We end the week by looking at this card,
featuring the female half of the Eon
Duo. The two Latis
are pretty popular Pokémon, so were a
natural for inclusion in a shiny
collectible set like Dragon Vault. Will
there ever be a need to take her out of
the binder and spoil the mint condition
of the card through play? Let’s find
out.
Latias
is a Dragon Type
unevolving Basic with 100 HP. All
of those things are pretty good. Dragons
are only Weak to their own Type, and the
100 HP means that she will survive an
unboosted
Dragon Pulse from Little
Rayquaza and
an unboosted
Night Spear from
Darkrai as well.
Rayquaza-EX,
Hydreigon,
and Garchomp
will all laugh in her face though. The
Retreat cost of one is fine and could be
negated altogether with
Skyarrow
Bridge.
That’s a fairly solid start, then, so I
guess it comes down to the attacks. The
first, Energy Assist, costs one
Colourless, does no damage, but does
allow you to attach a Basic Energy card
from your discard pile to a Benched
Pokémon. Sort of
useful? Yes.
Worth giving up an attack for?
No, not really. You have to attach to
Latias in
the first place to even use the attack,
so you would have to get it off twice
just to see a net gain. Chances of
Latias
surviving that long are not good, even
when you factor in Sky Heal, her second
attack. For the awkward cost of one Fire
and one Psychic,
Latias does a mere 40 damage and
heals 20 damage from herself . . . but
only if you have the mostly useless
Latios on
your Bench. What to say about this?
40 damage
isn’t going to impact the game much,
healing 20 will rarely (id ever) save
Latias from
a two-hit KO, and having to run her male
counterpart may make for a nice on-theme
gimmick, but it does absolutely nothing
for this card’s playability.
If this card looks familiar . . . well
it should. It is
extremely similar to the
Latias HGSS
Promo that was released a while ago, but
has now rotated. In fact the Promo is
arguably a better card, thanks to all
Colourless attack costs and the ability
to heal all Benched Pokémon, not just
itself.
Ever seen the Promo
Latias in a competitive
tournament deck though? Me neither.
Expect this one to share the same fate.
Rating
Modified: 1.5 (too many better options
when it comes to Energy acceleration)
Limited: N/A (mini set)
